Blog Post: Storm in a B-cup (part one)

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Bearing in mind that a fascination with all things pertaining to Versailles and 18th century French impropriety are all the rage in the UK this summer as a result of the Canal+ programme which is currently illiciting looks of smouldering allure and incandescent rage in equal proportion. it’s time to properly address one of the most enduring myths which surround any element of antique glass – Marie Antoinette and her culpability – or otherwise – for the shape of champagne coupe bowls !

To any right thinking individual. the whole thing should be dismissed as scurrilous if not faintly pathetic wittering but. in the interests of fairness it must be conceded that there is some vestige of truth behind the whole breast-related fable.

It’s not quite so crass as to have involved an artisan glassmaker eyeing up the profile of the Queen Consort of France and Navarre and deciding that he’d throw together a set of coupes mirroring the decorous curves of her décolletage and associated well-rounded accoutrements. but it does entail a soupçon of rather curious behaviour. peculiar – in both senses of the word – to the higher echelons of the aristocracy in the 18th century.

Bourbon high society may have been the very definition of the concept of the idle rich – wealthy ruling classes so far removed from the day to day travails of the rest of the population to such an extent as to quite literally prompt a revolution. such was the universal disgust at their profligate and extravagant lifestyle. Ever at a loss as how best to both fritter away their free time and spend vast amounts of money. any number of bizarre and divers entertainments were the order of the day for Marie Antoinette and her coterie. One such distraction involved the construction of L’Hameau de la Reine – the Hamlet of the Queen – at Versailles. This was a full sized collection of pastoral buildings. designed to provide a retreat for those unfortunate souls beleaguered by the appalling rigors of day to day life in the most cossetted of environments imaginable.

It was basically a working farm. complete with watermill. dovecote. cottage garden. sundry other faux rustic buildings. livestock and. of most relevance to our investigations. a dairy – or to be precise. two dairies. One was of relatively standard construction. where the produce from the farm was processed and prepared to produce cream. cheese and the other bounty of bovine fabrication whilst the other was more properly termed a laiterie d’agrément (pleasure dairy). and was a sumptuously appointed salon. all white marble. expensive paint jobs. exquisite mouldings and general decorative excess (see pictures – one of the dairy at Rambouillet and one from Versailles).

Here. Marie could entertain her guests and present all the freshly prepared fare from the working dairy next door. affording an aura of effortless arcadian abundance but. of course. without having to get her hands or expensive silk shoes dirty. The Queen also had a second pleasure diary built for her. at Château de Rambouillet. another Royal palace twenty five miles from Versailles. This sort of extravagant sort project was not exclusive to French nobilty. as the notion of the pleasure dairies was a common enough concept across European haute société but. naturally. Marie’s were far more extravagant than most.

Part Two of this piece to follow later in the weekend; in the meantime here is a link to all the champagne glasses. including coupes. which are listed on our website:

http://scottishantiques.com/index.php?route=product/search&filter_name=champagne